Since the middle part of the 20th century, many traditional mechanical/acoustical instruments have spawned electronic substitutes in the form of electronic instruments that mimic some of the tonal characteristics of their mechanical/acoustic forebearers. Electronic instruments were originally designed in response to a need for less expensive and more portable versions of their traditional counterparts. For example, the electric organ was one of the first relatively popular musical instruments. Early electric organs were relatively complex and expensive pieces of equipment with mechanically rotating tone wheels and speaker cabinets with rotating horn structures within them. Later, electric pianos became popular with performers of various types of popular music because of their relatively light weight and resultant portability.
Naturally, the fundamental instrument of rock and roll and modern rock music for 40 years has been the electric guitar. The electric guitar became a fundamental instrument of various forms of popular music in large part because of the sound colorations and intensity levels that could be reached playing an electric guitar rather than increased portability with respect to its acoustic counterpart.
Since the 1970s when the microprocessor was first introduced, the capabilities of digital electronic devices to process numbers and signals has been increasing at a rate that nearly doubles every two to three years. This, coupled with increased density of integrated circuit technology, has led to electronic devices that can reproduce, process, and alter very complex wave forms to produce sounds that not only mimic traditional mechanical acoustic instruments but have their own range of coloration that was unimaginable 20 years before.
Today, virtually any musical instrument can be mimicked to a significant degree by an electronic counterpart that includes appropriate signal generating and wave shaping circuitry. Today, not only electronic devices designed specifically to be music synthesizers play high quality multi-part music, but many small computers have significant musical capabilities included as standard, or relatively inexpensive add on equipment.
In response to the need for a standard notation for the electronic reproduction of sound and to provide portability of compositions and arrangements among various electronic music producing devices, a standard interface with a standard protocol has been created. This is known as the Musical Instrument Digital Interface, commonly referred as the MIDI standard. The MIDI standard is well documented and familiar to those skilled in the art. It is a serial interface standard that specifies a five pin connector with a 220 ohm output impedance. Serial data is transmitted at 31.25 kilobits per second and it provides 16 distinct channels for 16 distinct voices. The standard addresses encoding of pitch and velocity data for each channel. A wide variety of modern electronic musical instruments accept input from the performer and encode the required sounds in response to this input in the form of standard MIDI output. This output can be delivered MIDI synthesizing device that will thus produce a sound of the intended pitch, intensity, and tone quality.
The invention is the subject of this specification was designed principally to be used in the genre of popular music normally referred to as rock music. However, those familiar with popular music forms know that characterizations by genre are only useful for providing a relatively general sense of the nature and quality of the music in question. Thus, while the present invention is not limited to use in popular music performances, this specification adopts the terminology popular music in its broader sense of distinguishing from what is normally referred to as "classical" music. As such, it includes rock, rock and roll, jazz and a wealth of other genres and sub-genres that have been named and performed over the years.
The invention that is the subject of this specification is an improved drum and percussion synthesizer. It has been known for some period of time that planar piezoelectric transducers make good trigger transducers for percussion synthesizers because they produce, when struck, a voltage output that approximates the impulse like sound pressure characteristics output from acoustic percussion instruments. Earlier drum synthesizers included several discrete piezoelectric transducers mounted on some form of shock absorbing backing. The outputs of the transducers were connected to some form of wave shaping and amplification signal to produce different drum sounds. It is known in the art to selectively attach the piezoelectric trigger transducers to various positions on a pad using hook and eye material such as that sold under the trademark Velcro.RTM. to selectively position the pads and to provide some shock absorption and isolation.
The inventors of the present invention have discovered that the most common drawback in prior art pad-type drum synthesizers is cross talk among the trigger transducers. By the very nature of the apparatus, the striking of one trigger transducer tends to impart a pressure impulse to adjacent transducers, thus leading to false triggering of drum sounds other than the one intended by striking a particular transducer.
Furthermore, much popular music is performed at very high sound pressure levels. This creates a situation in which there is significant acoustic feedback that can excite piezoelectric trigger transducers.
More recent prior art synthesizers include a device known as the Buchla Thunder. This is a membrane keyboard device that includes some keys having multiple segments and pressure and velocity sensitive membrane switches. The outputs in the membrane switches are connected to an interface for generating MIDI output and the apparatus has the possibility of controlling all 16 MIDI channels simultaneously. The thunder device is usable as a percussion synthesizer as well as a synthesizer of a variety of other sounds. The arrangement of the pads is essentially a trapezoidal pattern with the various key areas slanted to match the slopes of the non-parallel sides of the trapezoid.
As any aficionado of popular music knows, many popular musicians like freedom of movement on stage when performing. Dancing, gyrations, and other animated motions are an integral part of the performance of many popular musicians. Players of keyboard and percussion instruments have typically, in the past, been confined to the locations of their instruments and have not had the freedom of movement that, for example, singers, guitar and bass players have enjoyed. To date, there has been no provision of a percussion and drum synthesizer specifically designed to allow it to be played by an experienced percussionist while freely moving about in a standing position.
Furthermore, prior art devices used for drum synthesizers have generally required either striking a trigger transducer with a stick, in a manner that mimics the playing of acoustic drums, or have been relegated to keyboard type devices such as the Buchla Thunder apparatus discussed above. While it is a versatile transducer for providing MIDI standard output, the Buchla Thunder is essentially a keyboard device, even though the keys can be programmed to produce percussion sounds. Such a keyboard device does not provide a percussionist with an opportunity to play drum parts using hand motions that are familiar and comfortable to players of certain acoustic percussion instruments played with the hands. It is known that many percussionists like to play a hand part using rapid oscillating rotations of the hand about the axis of the bones of the forearm so that the thumb and fingers move up and down in a rapid manner. Some of the fingers can reach other parts of the drum head to change the tone produced by striking it. This type of motion often feels natural to percussionists and allows a rapid repetition rate for percussion sounds. Therefore, there is a need in the art for a drum and percussion synthesizer that allows an experienced percussionist to play familiar drum parts using familiar and natural feeling motions of the hands and fingers.
Lastly, an instrument that combines the two desirable qualities described above, i.e., operability from a standing position and playing by natural motions, also benefits from improved isolation of the trigger transducers used to trigger various percussive sounds.